{"id":871278,"date":"2026-08-25T20:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T20:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/871278\/"},"modified":"2026-08-25T20:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T20:08:09","slug":"new-bootloader-lets-you-take-the-meta-out-of-the-original-meta-quest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/871278\/","title":{"rendered":"New bootloader lets you take the &#8220;Meta&#8221; out of the original Meta Quest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tinkerers are also in the early stages of figuring out how root access can unlock previously unavailable features on the Quest hardware. That includes activating the 90 Hz refresh rate that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-09-26-john-carmack-oculus-connect-cto-keynote.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">John Carmack admitted in 2019<\/a> was being held back to 72 Hz in the OS for performance reasons. There are also projects in the works to <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/Juspertinry\/q2ctrl-module\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">get other VR controllers working with the original Quest<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, Meta\u2019s then-CTO John Carmack <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gaming\/2021\/10\/john-carmack-pushes-out-unlocked-os-for-defunct-oculus-go-headset\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">released an official \u201cfull root access\u201d update for the Oculus Go<\/a>, the Quest\u2019s wireless predecessor. At the time, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ID_AA_Carmack\/status\/1441496416463904768\" rel=\"nofollow\">Carmack said<\/a> he hoped that update would allow tinkerers to \u201crepurpose the [Go] hardware for more things today\u201d and ensure that \u201ca randomly discovered shrink wrapped [Go] headset twenty years from now [would] be able to update to the final software version, long after over-the-air update servers have been shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>QuestStack author starseed12345 <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/starseed12345\/QuestStack\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">speculates on GitHub<\/a> that a similar exploit could probably enable root access on Quest 2 headsets running older firmware versions but that currently \u201cthe chance of bricking outweighs the benefit of unlocking the bootloader.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tinkerers are also in the early stages of figuring out how root access can unlock previously unavailable features&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[49,48,61,260,261,262],"class_list":["post-871278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-virtual-reality","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology","tag-virtual-reality","tag-virtualreality","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}